Looting

Looted artefacts linked to disgraced British dealer Robin Symes returned to Italy

Restitution follows the return of 350 Neolithic and Byzantine objects from the same source to Greece

Sudannews

Sudan conflict: pro-democracy artists under attack and museums at risk of looting, sources say

Leading artists and museum professionals raise fears as violence erupts in Khartoum

Antiquities trafficking investigator appointed president of Harvard Law Review—a position once held by Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Barack Obama

Apsara Iyer says looting of Indian temples was a "wake-up call" to understanding how cultural heritage and crime intersect

Denver Art Museum returns donations from associate of antiquities smuggler Douglas Latchford

The museum has issued a statement further distancing itself from the late Emma Bunker, who allegedly falsified provenance for items looted from Cambodia

US officials return antiquities looted from Iraq Museum in 2003

The artefacts, cylinder and stamp seals dating back thousands of years, were seized after a US collector tried to sell one in an online auction

Stolen statue linked to antiquities trafficker Doris Wiener repatriated to Cambodia

The sandstone vishnu statue was stolen from a seventh-century temple and smuggled to Manhattan in 1995, when it was sold to a private collector

Qatari sheikh’s rare ivory mask, stolen from Benin City by the British, is one of five on public display—none in Nigeria

The 16th-century mask was withdrawn from sale at Sotheby’s over a decade ago amid escalating calls for restitution

V&A likely to return looted Asante gold treasures to Ghana

Museum’s director Tristram Hunt wants to loosen regulations on restituting artefacts seized by British forces in the 19th century

Ukraine gets emergency Red List for art as evidence mounts of 'trading networks flowing West'

The International Council of Museums has worked with Interpol to create the list, with border patrols on "high alert" to seize art stolen from Ukrainian museums—but is it too late?

Oxford and Cambridge universities approve returning 213 looted Benin bronzes to Nigeria

Charity Commission could veto the decision to repatriate objects from Ashmolean Museum and Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology

Nearly 20 years after the invasion of Iraq, an artist revisits the looting of the national museum in Baghdad

The Iranian-born artist Abbas Akhavan’s installation at the Contemporary Art Gallery in Vancouver re-stages a scene captured at the Iraq Museum in 2003

Seized antiquities sent from Ukraine to go on show at British Museum

Hoard of medieval metalwork had been illegally mailed to the UK, and will be sent to Kyiv museum when safe to do so

The hunt for looted Cambodian objects—are they hidden in the West's museums?

Plus, the dark truth of the Marcos family’s extravagance and Ruth Asawa at Modern Art Oxford

Sponsored byChristie's

Saving Ukraine’s heritage: an eyewitness account of relief efforts

Plus, the Cezanne blockbuster at The Art Institute of Chicago and Nicola L.’s Gold Femme Commode at Alison Jacques

Sponsored byChristie's

Three looted Palmyra sculptures seized in Geneva freeport return to Syria

The two funerary reliefs and the head of a priest were exhibited at the Musée d’art et d’histoire in Geneva in 2017

Major art trade groups join forces to stop looted Afghan artefacts reaching Western market

International trade groups including top British antique dealers vow to oppose trade of Afghan heritage artefacts under Taliban control

Looted 2,700-year-old bricks—discovered in Swiss warehouse—are returned to Iran

Before the discovery of the more than 50 painted blocks, “the richness of Mannaean civilisation had not been appreciated”, expert says

US hands over two stolen ancient lintels to Thailand after retrieving them from the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco

Dating from the ninth and tenth centuries, the objects are thought to have been looted from sacred sites in the late 1960s

Lootnews

Looted Libyan sculpture seized at Heathrow Airport heads back home with help from the British Museum

The funerary piece was illicitly excavated from the ancient city of Cyrene which is under threat from property developers

Mosul Cultural Museum rises from the ravages of Isis

Painstaking reconstruction by multi-agency task force is salvaging what artefacts remain after Islamic State occupation

Benin bronzes: looted treasures will return to Nigeria at last

Plus, the newly discovered Van Gogh is sold and artist Rana Begum on Tess Jaray

Hosted by Ben Luke and Aimee Dawson. with guest speakers Catherine Hickley and Martin Bailey. Produced by Julia Michalska, David Clack and Henrietta Bentall

Looted in the 1980s, a sacred stele at the Dallas Museum of Art is headed back to Nepal

After FBI investigation, sculptural antiquity lent by a collector is determined to have a disturbing provenance

French Senate and government lock horns on restitution

Deputies rejected senators' proposal for a national council to advise the government on future restitution claims

After outcry from antiquities trade, Unesco further adjusts ad campaign on looted artefacts

Dealers association challenged the campaign’s claims that two newly pictured objects were stolen

Hunt still on for a Van Gogh self-portrait lost deep in a salt mine during the Second World War

The Magdeburg masterpiece may have been burned at the end of hostilities—but some believe it might have been looted and survive

a blog by Martin Bailey

Is the future of museums in Africa?

We speak to museum experts András Szántó and Sonia Lawson. Plus, Dan Hicks on the legacy of colonial looting and National Gallery curator Christopher Riopelle on the Polish painter Jan Matejko

Hosted by Ben Luke. Produced by Julia Michalska, David Clack and Aimee Dawson

Unesco under fire for using Met objects in anti-trafficking campaign

Advertisements said that the works were looted in recent years, but Met documentation shows that they have a much longer provenance

Heritagecomment

Fifty years on, Unesco’s convention against illicit trafficking of cultural artefacts still shines bright

International treaty of 1970 has helped establish an ethical basis for the actions of law enforcement and museums

Black Lives Matter movement is speeding up repatriation efforts, leading French art historian says

Bénédicte Savoy—co-author of the Sarr-Savoy report that recommends France return its African artefacts—warns of "collective amnesia" over restitution debates that happened 40 years ago

Book Clubinterview

Q&A | ‘The looting was a chaotic free-for-all’: Dan Hicks on the pillaging of the Benin Bronzes and colonialism in museums

The curator and University of Oxford professor tells us about his new book, The Brutish Museums, which details how museums themselves were “used as a unique type of weapon”